I Am the Hero's Immature Younger Brother

“Did you come here to be a nuisance? Pernen.”

An unusual energy flowed from Pernen’s body, but unfortunately, that energy did not reach Viburn. The black energy stretching out from Viburn was quietly eating away at the blue energy.

“You’re still as violent and greedy as ever.”

Pernen clicked her tongue and withdrew her energy.

“So what is your business?”

“I only came because I was curious.”

“Why would you be curious about this child?”

At the cold gaze, Pernen let out a sigh.

“I only came to check because he is friends with my grandson.”

“If you’re done checking, leave.”

“Wait! Did you not hear what I said earlier? I told you, in the end, you’re going to come begging to me anyway.”

Viburn looked at Pernen in front of him with eyes that said she was troublesome. At that bothersome and languid gaze, Pernen giggled.

“I am not curious.”

“Then fine. Just don’t come begging later! Ah, I’ll give you one piece of advice. Children, you see, like things that are sweet and soft. If you only act hard and cold like that, he may run away to someone like sweet cotton candy. Or maybe it would be better to keep wearing that ugly old grandfather’s skin! Children are supposed to like grandmothers and grandfathers, after all.”

In any case, your current appearance is far too shameless for your age! Leaving those words behind, Pernen disappeared. Her giggling laughter stirred through the room for a while, then vanished.

Viburn looked at Ren with an expressionless face.

Ren opened his eyes wide around the time dawn began to break.

Dawn at sea felt much bluer and quieter than dawn on land. Of course, the waves striking the side of the ship and the endless breaking foam were by no means quiet.

“You are not sleeping more.”

“Ah...... Viburn.”

Ren rubbed his eyes. A faint trace of tears came away on his index finger. It felt as though he had dreamed, and it also felt as though an old memory had come to him. It was an ambiguous feeling.

“Sleep more.”

“Should I?”

When he mumbled softly, a cold hand swept over Ren’s forehead. At the hand gently stroking him, sleep came pouring down on him again.

Slowly blinking his eyes, Ren surrendered his body to the drowsiness coming over him.

***

For nearly the past month, Temar had been wrapped in a strange feeling the entire time.

“Did I have someone I loved?”

Even at Luman’s out-of-nowhere question, Temar could not sincerely laugh at him.

Because he realized that was exactly what he himself truly wanted to ask.

He passed it off as a casual joke, and for several days did not move from Giselle’s room.

Temar felt his own unease growing larger and larger.

Yes, when they mentioned Ragniel’s “death.”

What he had felt was not fear of the king’s death, but rather fear of “death” itself.

Ragniel breathing his last would certainly be regrettable and sorrowful, but it was not something terrifying.

A Hero was a position that always kept death at one’s side. And Temar was not afraid of death.

And yet the moment he thought of “death,” he felt his limbs stiffen, as though facing an old fear.

Death should not be able to frighten him, so what on earth was making him afraid?

Temar pondered for a long time, but in the end could not find the answer.

Ragniel, who showed no improvement, and Giselle, who avoided explanations.

He did not press him, but if Ragniel died like this, revenge for the king would have to be taken. That was what Temar thought.

“I thought it was raining. Why are you crying?”

“Haa. Don’t ask, don’t ask. I don’t know either.”

The sound of Geloman and Luman talking could be heard behind him, but Temar did not turn around.

He was looking at the painting hanging in Giselle’s room. It was a famous painting by an unnamed painter. Many of the paintings hanging throughout the royal palace had been painted by that unnamed painter.

The painting Temar was looking at showed a red sun sinking below the surface of the water. No, perhaps it was rising.

The sun submerged in water was quietly scattering light over the surface. The seawater touched by that light glittered in warm colors.

Temar looked at the painting as if looking at something he missed.

He had never had the slightest interest in paintings, so even he did not know why he had been looking at this painting for so long.

It was just that if he did not do even this, it felt as though he would storm out of this place.

To search for something.

To confirm what it was that was leaving his hands moment by moment.

Temar could not shake the feeling that something held in his hands was slipping away like sand. Geloman and Luman’s conversation had also been almost that.

What on earth were they losing?

Did Giselle know everything?

But he could not confront him about it either. Because if he missed this moment, he felt that even the feeling that he had lost something would be forgotten cleanly. Temar was barely holding onto the very end of the sensation that was faintly disappearing.

Two days after that.

Temar suddenly shouted some name.

“---!”

He had shouted it like a scream, but Temar forgot it immediately. The evaporated memory left nothing behind. Only with his pupils opened wide and his gaze fixed fiercely on empty air, Temar remained frozen for a long while.

At last, every sensation left Temar.

Only then did Temar exchange light conversation with Luman and Geloman, and seriously examine Ragniel’s condition.

“......We may have to prepare.”

“Temar, don’t say unlucky things. He’ll wake up. As if we can’t even hold on to one life?”

But Luman’s words were only bluffing that held a wish. Luman’s face was growing paler by the day. The others’ situation was no different.

Their authority, leaking away endlessly, was slowly showing its bottom. It was a sensation they had faintly felt whenever they drew on their power. Once they drew out all of these things, they would become empty shells, and probably close their eyes without even time to say farewell.

Though Heroes probably did not need farewells.

Others would need farewells.

Temar did not even know what he was thinking.

“Being stuck in this room makes it feel like we’re being imprisoned. Should we at least play cards?”

Luman took strong liquor and a deck of cards out from inside his clothes. He wanted to shake off, even with strong liquor, the intense sense of déjà vu that felt as though he had experienced it at some point. The déjà vu Luman felt was not about his body or his authority. It was emotion. It was a painful sadness like having his heart gouged out with a hot iron spoon.

“It has been a while. Let us play.”

“......What’s gotten into you? Good, I might make some money today.”

Luman, who had poured strong liquor into his mouth, sparkled his eyes and grinned broadly. Perhaps because of the liquor, tears had welled in his eyes.

“Hey, Temar! You’re playing too, right? Come here.”

“I’m fine.”

Luman’s criticism came with a click of his tongue, saying he never knew how to have fun. Geloman also nodded in agreement. But Temar merely laughed softly.

“Life is something you can never know.”

If death existed for him, he had thought it would be by taking a blade on a blood-splattered battlefield, or by being hit by an anti-Hero weapon and dying so miserably that even his body could not be found, or if not that, then on the royal guillotine.

Who could have known.

That they would huddle together in a room and wait for death to come.

The kingdom’s indomitable Heroes.

Temar was vaguely sensing it. The “final moment” Giselle spoke of was perhaps their deaths.

Or perhaps, through the deaths of the Heroes, Ragniel could be brought back to life.

From the moment he became the kingdom’s Hero, he had never doubted his mission. So this death as well was something he would gladly accept.

Because he had cleanly forgotten the moth-like unease that had been eating away at his chest.

Temar could smile.

“What did you say, Temar?”

Luman, who was in the middle of dealing cards, asked absentmindedly.

“He says life is something you can never know.”

A mischievous smile hung at the corner of Geloman’s mouth as he passed on Temar’s words.

After hearing the words passed along, Luman giggled.

“What are you saying out of nowhere, Temar. Kihihi. Are you planning to give the kingdom’s people a speech about life?”

When Temar only shrugged without answering, Luman immediately criticized him.

“You acted like you were about to say something grand, and now you’re silent again? If you’re bored, stop setting the mood and come take your hand!”

Whenever Luman laughed, his bright hair swayed. Temar blankly looked at the swaying blond hair.

One day after that.

Temar could not sleep. The others also stayed up all night with their eyes open.

A room where even the lamplight had been put out and the windows were all covered with curtains, dark as a prison and quiet as a coffin.

He was experiencing phantom pain. It was a sensation as though part of his body had been cut away and half of his mind had been torn out. Things he had never felt in his entire life.

Temar could not give any name to the pain he was feeling. Because he did not even know what kind of pain it was.

But if this night passed and he faced the morning sun.

He had an intuition that beneath that light, everything would become all right.

Everything painful would ripple beneath the brilliant and fair red sunlight, then disappear.

‘I don’t want that.’

But Temar did not want to do that. It was a feeling of not wanting to become all right. Even so, there was nothing he could do.

God.

Without even realizing it, Temar sought God and murmured, then knelt and bowed his head to the floor.

His forehead touched the carpet.

He brought his two hands together and searched for God for a long time, unable to find even words to pray.

A few seconds passed, during which even breathing felt horrifying.

The painful sensations gradually retreated, and the moment they all rushed in at once like the tide.

Just before the sunlight spread.

When dawn was brightening and the world around had begun to turn blue.

Inside the room where not a single point of light could seep in, Temar remembered a certain dawn.

The sound of small feet running toward him, the bright voice calling his name long and clear.

Honey-bright blond hair, disheveled and swaying over a forehead.

And green eyes like tender leaves, shining brightly as though holding the fresh green of spring.

The boy who came running with the blue light at his back.

At last, he remembered.

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